Monday, March 22, 2010

Freedom State of Mind (Passover Special)

A week before passover, (crazy late by Israeli standards), I searched the store for extra accessories for the Seder.Eugene is not a big city, so it is hard to find here special items for Passover, but I did find some Haggada at Barnes and Nobles. A "30 minute Seder" Haggadah! That sounds fantastic! everybody will like it! A bit of reading (fast forward style) and a lot of food.Unfortunately, when I checked the 30 minute Seder deal, on the inside I saw that most of the script is only in English... meaning - it can take me days, if not months to finish it...

For you it may take 30 minutesbut for me it would take until next Hanukkah

In another store, my eye was caught by cloth napkins that could match perfectly with my china set, same colors and similar design. But Oops ! a problem! just right on the corners, in a very curly font it was mentioned that: "Jesus is alive!" - cute, but not exactly a bingo match to our springy event. But wait a minute, talking about Jesus, I was flushed with the sights of the holy land's landscapes. The Seven Species, and all the picturesque vineyards that, tired from holding all these grapes, are just waiting for passover every year. Just imagine how many gallons of red wine fill people's hearts and minds over the one evening of the Seder.... Now that gave me a better sense of what I might looking for and like in a fairy tale, on entering the next home decor store, I saw "the handsome prince" just few feet in front of me: A loaded stand full with items of grape and wine bottles. This is it! I knew, a love at first sight: soft purple nature, freedom, spring and wine! But who really believes in fairy tale stories? it was much too soon for a wedding: getting closer I saw that all these items were caring a bold proud title: "Greece". It was one of the collection of what is the updated trendy Greek theme. Why not have on all this Mediterranean style items, a title saying: "Israel" or I would even go with "Egypt" title ... for passover.Back home I am getting so tired with this chasing after items, I'm seriously considering to go green with the Passover table setting this year. I don't mean using St. Patrick's leftovers to decorate the Seder table, I just mean getting less decoration items from the stores and maybe use more items from my own "farm", like my magnets for passover, and from other people's farms - like real grapes and real local wine. Also my mom taught me natural white is the best color: always chic and "goes with everything" so why not make it easy and assume it's true, and use the cloth napkins I already have?

Because - hey, Passover is the holiday of freedom! I do wish to feel a bit freedom on the Seder. I think that two (or more) days in the kitchen preparing the Seder will be enough to decrease my free state of mind, so there is no need for a full week of shopping that would make this holiday feeling completely vanish. And no, let's not discuss the cleaning issue now...